A report I wrote in the aftermath of last month's parliamentary elections in Egypt for the Project on Middle East Democracy is out. You can get it here.

Written for a US policymaker audience, it takes the recent elections as an alarm signal for Egypt's future, reviews some of the Bush and Obama administrations' approaches to democracy promotion in Egypt and the limited support for more vigorous pressure on Egypt in Washington. Nothing that the latter is not about to change, it makes a few suggestions for steps the US could take in the aftermath of the elections, including downgrading relations with an unrepresentative People's Assembly and more forceful engagement with the Egyptian opposition, including endorsing widely shared goals such as the National Association for Change's six points for reform, and engaging with political actors even if they are outside parliament. In the wake of the Alexandria bombing, it also urges continued American support to address grievances of the Coptic community, such as restrictions on church-building.

While policymakers will look to the recommendations (which I hope are humble and realistic enough to be taken under consideration), there were two further points I was interested in making.